


separation anxiety

by lilhex



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Bisexual Adam Parrish, Bisexuality, Childhood Memories, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Pre-Call Down the Hawk, because it's about adam's childhoooooood, the bi adam lore fic i wrote under an hour within the first three hours of thinking of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:33:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27167314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilhex/pseuds/lilhex
Summary: The first day of kindergarten, a little boy was crying
Relationships: Adam Parrish/Original Character(s), Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 10
Kudos: 54





	separation anxiety

The first day of kindergarten, a little boy was crying his heart out at the door.

Adam remembers little from that one year, but he remembers how the building felt, inviting and colorful, and how he would draw with crayons, how we would play with other kids. The only reason he remembers most of the kids is because they went on to be classmates on grade school the next year, their faces from back then blurry in memory. But that one boy, he remembers his face on that day, scrunched up and red from crying.

Adam also remembers the color of his own jacket, bright red. His mother had zipped it up for him before leaving. His father had dropped him off without ever leaving the car. Adam stands, and watches the little boy throw his fit. The boy’s jacket is blue.

The boy is clinging to his mom. He doesn’t want to let go. She’s talking to the teacher, apologetic. She ends up staying, spending the first day in a corner of the classroom, her little boy craning his neck every few minutes to make sure his mom is still there.

The next day, the boy is crying again, but his mother has to go.

“Jimmy, we talked about this,” she says, gently. A rush goes through Adam’s stomach. _That’s_ his name.

She untangles herself from him, carefully, unfolding her giant legs to stand in her full height, and as she does the crying becomes worse than ever.

Left alone in the hall, the boy is inconsolable. One of the teachers squats down next to him.

“It’s alright, now, James,” she coos, but Adam remembers how his mother had called him Jimmy.

“Do you want a hug?” the teacher asks, voice gentle. Adam watches as Jimmy, without a word or a nod, lips purple, falls into her arms. His crying resumes, less loud only because it is now muffled against the teacher’s blouse, and then the bell rings. When Adam catches sight of Jimmy again in the classroom, he is no longer crying, and Adam can see his eyes, brown and large.

The next day, Adam walks in to find Jimmy crying by himself in the hall. Most of the other kids are already in the main classroom, busy playing under the watchful eye of the _Mrs_. The _Miss_ is outside, talking to a parent, but it’s not Jimmy’s mom.

Jimmy’s watery eyes fix on Adam’s.

They stand still, considering each other, Jimmy’s sobs not ceasing for a bit, and then Adam steps closer.

“Hey, Jimmy,” he says, setting his lunch bag down. “Do you want a hug?”

Jimmy nods, and takes a deep breath, and stops crying. He still hiccups, a little, against Adam’s shoulder, and later Adam’s shirt is shoddy, but he doesn’t mind.

From that day on, Jimmy is his best friend. He still cries sometimes in the mornings, but he usually cheers up when he sees Adam. Jimmy’s mom pats Adam’s hair, one time, and calls him ‘a little hero’.

He remembers playing together, with the other kids as well, but always the two of them a pair, pretending to be brothers when playing house, or explorers, when the weather was good again and they went outside. He remembers Jimmy zipping up his jacket for him, and a teacher telling them Jimmy ought to let Adam try for himself. But Adam couldn’t do it, and Jimmy couldn’t lace up his shoelaces. They would help each other out. He remembers Jimmy’s eyelashes as he was looking down, focusing on Adam’s zipper.

_When did you know, Adam?_

He remembers first grade, following the rowdiest boy in the class around because he had long, blonde hair. They would race and Adam would run as fast as he could, never quite reaching the boy, and the rush that would take over his body because of the running, and because of the way the boy’s hair looked under the winter sun.

He remembers Sophie, who was always sweet and studious, and how she stood in front of him one day in third grade and held a dandelion flower out to him. He remembers taking it, and Sophie offering him her hand to hold next.

He remembers the two of them walking hand-in-hand around the back of the school, where none of the other kids would see. She showed him the corner where the dandelions grew. Then a teacher yelled at them to get back to the main playground. But he kept getting Sophie flowers he picked up off of the side of the road on his walk to school each morning, and she, too, had one for him, each morning.

_When did you know, Adam? Was there a moment?_

There hadn’t been a moment, not really. He remembers his father calling him soft, a pansy, a girl, whenever he was angry at him, whenever Adam couldn’t do something, his whole life long. Boys needed to be toughened up, was Robert Parrish’s reasoning. There was no mercy, no softness, no holding back.

He knew before he first heard the boys in his class calling another kid gay, but it sent a shiver down his spine nonetheless. He knew enough by that age to keep quiet and stay out of it. Nothing happened to that boy, he doesn’t think. They just kept calling him gay, gay, gay.

He also knew the first day of middle school; their bodies changing; the boys, tall, towering above him; the girls, hair long and down, that something had changed, was more real now, more rough and saturated, about him, about all of them.

He remembers the Aglionby boys, how the Henrietta kids would make fun of them, how he’d stare, like he’d stare at the naked Greek statues in his textbooks, mesmerized. How he’d stare at the actors on TV, the athletes, the implied love scenes, the big damn kiss.

_When did you know, Adam? Would you have known otherwise?_

He’s thought of that a lot, lately. Would he have ever discovered he was psychic if not for the bargain, if not for Cabeswater? Would he have even thought of it without Blue, Blue’s family, Persephone? Would it have remained dormant forever, a second layer of skin underneath, always there but never surfacing, eating him up from the inside?

He tried not to remember those years, but the memories are there, he finds, for him to return to, the crushes and the playgrounds. It’s not all abuse and bruises, his past. He cut himself up in little pieces, back then, and threw away what he couldn’t afford to sustain with the abandon of the man whose house is on fire and cannot save all of his belongings if he wants to survive. There was no time to grieve, no space for separation anxiety. Slowly, they’re coming back to him now. He sees them clearly, now; the parts of himself he knew, but had to suppress. The parts he never knew about, the parts he would’ve never learned about if he had stayed alone, stayed an island. The parts he did know, that he never had to think twice about. Moving back together to form a whole, the Adam Parrish he was always supposed to be.

When Ronan asks, that gray winter morning, legs tangled together in the bed, hidden beneath the covers to stay warm, he knows the answer.

_-When did you know?_

_-You always knew you were a dreamer. Just like that, I always knew. I always knew what I had to hide before I had to hide it._

Ronan reaches out for Adam’s hand, intertwines their fingers together, plants a kiss on Adam’s hand. They’re not hiding anymore. He’s looking at Ronan, and Ronan is looking at him.

**Author's Note:**

> i understand that this is very annoyingly written, very pretentious, purple prose overflowing, a comma fest all around. unfortunately i still felt the need to share <3 if you actually enjoyed please do consider leaving a little comment, kind words keep me warm as the days get colder <3  
> also i am not myself bisexual so i'm not past criticism on how i portrayed adam's sexuality here. please take care everyone!
> 
> (you can find me on tumblr @hippolvte!)


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